Monday, December 03, 2012

Pandora Users And Radio's Opportunities

Ask Pandora listeners what they like most about radio and
they’ll tell you it’s ‘feeling connected.’

Their big dislikes? Radio is boring and fatiguing.

Those are some of the findings Jeff Vidler, Sr. Vice President of Media and Entertainment Research, shares in a new
Vision Critical report, “What Pandora Means for Radio.” The Canadian company
surveyed more than 1000 US listeners 18+ in the September-October online survey where just under 1/3 identified themselves as Pandora users and 42% reported listening to some form of online
radio.

Jeff shared a lot including the
demographics of online listening (not surprisingly 18-29’s are the heaviest
users), desktop consumption being more than that of smartphones and tablets combined and Pandora listeners spending more time with AM/FM radio than non-Pandora
users (about 50% more - 19.1 vs. 12.7 hours).

That last finding got a lot of coverage (as an industry we're good at self-congratulation), but for growth and opportunity, this graph deserves our time and attention.

The obvious first. The attributes Pandora most uniquely associate with AM/FM radio are “makes me feel connected,” “convenient,” and “easy” on the
positive side and “boring” and tiring on the negative. Personal, local, live,
and music discovery/curation were singled out elsewhere in the study as AM/FM attributes
respondents valued.

While the distance between AM/FM radio and feeling connected
is short in comparison to the other media shown. But if we were to draw
‘spheres’ of roughly equal size with Satellite and Internet Audio Services at
the center, those two media are in proximity to a greater number of positive
associations.

Imagine if radio were to occupy a slightly different space
as in the graph below so that “puts me in a good mood,” “is for people like me”
and “interesting” are also encompassed.